In 1862 Ivan Turgenev's novel Fathers and Sons gives the word nihilist its public currency in the figure of Bazarov, the young materialist who bows to no authority and takes science as his only creed. The name, from the Latin nihil, nothing, had circulated in philosophy before; Turgenev fixes it to a generation, and both admirers and enemies take it up.
Tagged: Nihilism
The Event
- Date
- 1862 (exact)
- Era
- The Word and the Nineteenth Century; Standard periodization of the nihilist movement and idea
- Location
- St Petersburg; today St Petersburg, Russia
- Traditions
- Nihilism
- Streams
- Nihilism
- Key figures
- Ivan Turgenev
- Key texts
- Fathers and Sons
Primary Sources
- Turgenev, Ivan. Fathers and Sons. St Petersburg, 1862.
Secondary Sources
- Crosby, Donald A. The Specter of the Absurd: Sources and Criticisms of Modern Nihilism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988.
- Gillespie, Michael Allen. Nihilism Before Nietzsche. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
- Nishitani, Keiji. Religion and Nothingness. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.
- Reginster, Bernard. The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.
Provenance: HIST-1348; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-30.
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World View
Nihilism
Nihilism is the conviction that life has no inherent meaning, purpose, or objective moral truth; the heavens are empty and every value is groundless.